Complexities in the Mundane
by Zaedah
Summary: If one can surrender to a religion of recyclable relics, he’s already on his knees.


**Complexities in the Mundane**

Of the many reasons to possess one's own permanent dwelling, it appears by the clutter that Walter has chosen storage as his new prime motivation. Peter's father, having discovered impulse shopping, has taken a running start at hoarding and no surface is safe from being pressed into service. The indoor flea market on the corner needs redecorating by way of arson. It's not the nature of the trinkets that bothers Peter. It's the volume thereof. By comparison, his own purchases would fit into a knapsack. Which carries no end of significance.

It goes in cycles, like the rotation of weather patterns, Peter's covert drug store visits. Be it a corporate chain or the pop-and-mom variety, they all have one crucial ware in common; travel-sized items. Tiny shampoos, deodorants and collapsible toothbrushes equate to comfort food for a man accustomed to picking up a bag, slapping on a new persona and plunging headlong out of danger. Or boredom. Whichever comes first.

That someone's often chasing is no reason to forgo cleanliness.

It came from Russia, a gift from an ancient spinster who was convinced Peter was the reincarnation of her only love, many decades buried and apparently quite the dancer. The toiletry bag and its worn fabric, stuck zipper and screaming seams needs refreshing on the principle that 'just in case' is steering the oncoming train. Better to hop off the tracks and get on the bus with his hide and his Listerine intact.

Handcuffs and halitosis should never mingle.

When matters take a tricky turn, a recurrence aided by his taste for the shady, Peter invariably races to a drug store. Not that one needs to gear up for a long trek to these purveyors, box stores being an experiment of commercial in-vitro. He's just anti-establishment enough to refuse the shiny savings card admission to his keyring.

He's always had a curious attraction to cashiers, perhaps because they're usually the last faces he sees when fleeing.

Con artists are suckers for a method and his preferences fall into the category of pride over price. Picking the name brands makes him look less poor while simultaneously perpetuating the act of making him more poor. Except that now he can submit Colgate as an expense.

The wonderment of government sponsored sprees should be accompanied by a Gregorian choir. It's everything he loves about democracy and hates about bureaucracy. Unfortunately, he's arrived at a dreadfully grown-up place where departing with a hastily penned goodbye on the back of a crumpled receipt feels a lot like the guilt he's staunchly avoided in favor of freedom. And thus after a brief stay in his shabby bag, the midget products are inevitably tossed because he's trying not to go anywhere that can't house a full-sized Head and Shoulders.

They expect a bit of constancy from him and some days the non-verbal promise to remain in close proximity doesn't actually make his skin crawl. Until he passes a CVS and then white-knuckles must be peeled from the steering wheel. Occasionally, the cravings of men are stranger than pregnant women.

Pocket purchases aren't limited to duck-and-run hygiene products.

To solidify his pessimism whenever it gets snagged by the mouth on a hopeful line, he buys lottery tickets. It's his contribution to state funded irony; they donate his few dollars to people who likely save better than he. Peter's cumulative lifetime winnings from gas station gambling would finance a cold sandwich, a six pack and a box of condoms. In that order. Ultimately, millions are handed to a puritan who never inhaled while Peter has to fight off a cheap date for the privilege of the turkey club. While buzzed. Condoms may or may not be involved. Something appetizing could be aid about the perks of virtue but he chokes on sour syllables.

He doesn't entirely miss those days. Except when he does.

It isn't until the tall woman, who doesn't need heels to tower over his scrambled scruples, pokes at his threadbare bag that Peter considers what the content says about him. The FBI provides a designer essentials pouch and official business mandates that he use it. Appearances and all that. But the secrets he stores in the sack she's currently running long fingers across aren't for public consumption. Or even his own.

His life is in there, or at least the one that lives in his quick memory, bottled up in small containers that too swiftly run out. Replacements are his security, refills his comfort and if one can surrender to a religion of recyclable relics, he's already on his knees. They represent a holy rite: he can always leave and the necessities will be readily at hand. They will not judge his reasons or timing, waiting silently for the call to duty.

After Olivia vanishes in a puff of regulation, Peter dumps out the plastic lifelines and folds the bag gently, relegating it to the back of his closet, which Walter has begun using as a holding cell for his new wicker basket fetish. Eyesores painted in Easter colors and only Freud could discern what this obsession means. Peter's own fixations are no less garish.

The closet could be divested of its unwelcome contents as easily as his bag. But like so many holders of mundane ideals, it will only be refilled.


End file.
